2005 General Conference Session in St. Louis

Adventist Today Report 6

By Ervin Taylor and Elwin Dunn

THE EXERCISE OF SUPREME POLITICAL POWER: THE GENERAL CONFERENCE NOMINATING COMMITTEE

The recent election of the new Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church allowed non-Catholics to witness the public parts of a selection process that includes some procedures more a thousand years old.  Perhaps the most important element—how individual members of the College of Cardinals vote in a papal election—is expected to be a closely guarded secret.  On pain of excommunication, the electors of the Pope may not divulge to anyone for whom they cast their ballots. One reason for this rule was the attempt to insulate the voting process from the outside pressure on the cardinals by their kings and other powerful political entities during the period when the church was an important political player in Western Europe.

While the Seventh-day Adventist Church is about 140 years old, the main elements of its current political structure date to the opening decade of the 20th century.  Ironically, given the vitriolic anti-Catholic stance of early Adventism, the organizational arrangements that the Adventist denomination has evolved in its relatively short history have their closest analogue in the Roman Catholic hierarchical system.  In addition, the current Adventist system of decision-making at the highest levels of its bureaucracy continues to bear a strong resemblance to the authoritarian political systems previously in place in the old Soviet Union and the “People’s Republics” allied with it.

The recent selection of the President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists—a position described by a former GC president Neal Wilson in a legal proceeding as the SDA “First Minister“—illustrates most vividly how political power operates in the Adventist Church.

It would take a political scientist only a short period of time by interviews and other means to determine that one of the most critical centers of centralized political power in the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the General Conference (GC) Nominating Committee, a group constituted once each five years at the time of the GC session. 

This body nominates individuals for all high GC offices.  It has become the most powerful and, for those employed by major bureaucratic units within the GC, the most feared group.  This body determines who will be retained their positions or be advanced, demoted or removed entirely from direct GC employment. 

While its 196 members are said to be “democratically” selected by a caucus of each of the major divisions of the church, a review of the names of the current GC Nominating Committee shows some curious anomalies. For example, all of the union presidents in the NAD are members of the nominating committee which is in dramatic contrast to the representations from other divisions. Even more interesting, there are a number of “retired” workers named by the General Conference.  In the North American Division, these individuals are named by the Union Conference Executive Committees-- not by any lower level of church organization. When questioned about the rationale for this “policy,” Adventist Today (AT) was told that this is according to “working policy” which says, first, that each higher level of church organization comes from the next lower level, and second, “retired” workers would have the best information about the capabilities of individuals. 

Our visiting political scientist could also observe an operational principal by which the church conducts its “elections.”  This is the indirect “election” procedure using the Nominating Committee as an effective buffer between the “ordinary” non-elite delegates and the outcome desired by high-church officials. The “Rules of Order” clearly state “All nominations for elective office or executive committee membership shall be made by the Nominating Committee.  This precludes nominations from the floor or by any other body or person . . . Only one name shall be presented to the floor by the Nominating Committee for each position to be filled” (p. 6).  Under this system, delegates are allowed to vote only for a single candidate for each position already preselected by the all-powerful Nominating Committee.

The power of the GC Nominating Committee is legitimized in such documents as the GC “Rules of Order.”  This document states that the Adventist Church is “not a parliamentary body, a political forum . . . When Seventh-day Adventists meet to transact the business of the Church, they are meeting with God . . .  The overarching concern of church sessions and committees is to discover . . . God’s will regarding the issues, plans, and appointments to be considered . . . . the object of [these] rules of order is to facilitate accomplishing the will of God.” (p. 2, 2005 edition).  By making the political processes by which the church makes decisions “sacred,” church leaders can argue that what they are doing is simply carrying out the “will of God.”

Our observing political scientist would also quickly discover that one means by which the bureaucratic elite works to maintain control of the church’s penta-annual election of its highest officers is the veil of official secrecy around the deliberations of the Nominating Committee.  Members of the Nominating Committee have a “gentlemen’s agreement”—this was the expression employed, even though there are now women on the committee—that members will not divulge what transpires during the committee deliberations. Such secrecy facilitates the ability of GC high officials to directly influence, and in some cases dominate, the decision making process.  As the “Rules of Order” dictates “The Nominating Committee shall meet in closed session.  This does not mean that officers of higher church organizations cannot be invited to sit as counselors with the committee.” (p. 6).

To test the current vitality of this political principle and to foster the “openness and transparency” advocated in current GC documents, Adventist Today (AT) sought permission to observe and report on the process employed by the Nominating Committee in its evaluation and ultimate selection of candidates for office.  Despite the encouragement for such an endeavor by several highly placed North American officials, several of whom were themselves members of the committee, the General Conference president rejected this request out of hand. 

Speaking for President Paulsen was his personal assistant, Orville Parchment, who stated that because of the need to discuss highly personal issues, “total confidentiality and secrecy was required for all deliberations.”  The individual making the request for AT was a current member of the North American Division Committee and a recently retired member of a local Conference Committee.  This person was regularly required to demonstrate and maintain such confidentiality as part of his committee responsibilities.

Despite attempts to maintain secrecy with a “gentlemen’s agreement,” details concerning the votes in the committee for GC president were widely circulated among “knowledgeable” delegates almost as soon as the votes were tallied and reported publicly by representatives of Spectrum magazine in emails and on their web site.      

Seventh-day Adventists may not have “smoke-filled rooms” at the General Conference, but we have clean air equivalents. Participation in formal and informal caucuses of powerful interest groups occupies most of the waking time of various high church officials—the SDA “cardinals.”  They occasionally appear in public to perform ceremonial duties but their most important political function at the GC is to see to it that the “right” people are elected to the most important positions.  Control of political patronage, e.g. conferring church offices on supporters--including the editorship of major church media--is one means by which powerful interest groups maintain control of the decision-making apparatus and the means of controlling the flow of information and propaganda to the laity.

While Adventist Today recognizes the legitimate need of church leadership to express concerns about individuals that are proposed for high church in executive sessions of the Nominating Committee, the present mode of operation of this powerful committee is inconsistent with the need for transparency and accountability to the laity who fund the General Conference bureaucracy.